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Darren Hayman recommended Strawberries by The Damned in Music (curated)

 
Strawberries by The Damned
Strawberries by The Damned
(0 Ratings)
Album Favorite

"The Damned were the first music that I felt I owned. The band you found on your own. The group that your friends don't know. ‘Hayman likes punk music! Ha-ha, what an idiot.’ But the Damned were a terrible punk band; they were too silly, too stupid. I don't like debut albums, all that mindless, directionless energy. I don't like bands at the end of their careers either; the Damned especially do not seem to be able to grow old gracefully. I like bands when they’re in transition. When they try and escape what made them and start to grow into what they always should have been. The Damned were a pop band, and this is their Revolver, not as obvious as their more significant record ‘Phantasmagoria’. They haven't quite ironed out the kinks, and they all hate Captain Sensible who is about to leave them to become a failed star. Strawberries has more tunes than an Elephant Six album. They never play any songs from it now."

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The Glass Hotel
The Glass Hotel
Emily St. John Mandel | 2020 | Fiction & Poetry
8
8.5 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
Gripping
I decided to give this book a go as it's one of the top reads on Goodreads and sounded intriguing, and i really do love it when you pick up something completely unknown that turns out to be highly enjoyable.

The plot for this is rather wide ranging. It covers a variety of characters that are all connected through both an isolated hotel and a financial scheme, and follows them at various points in their lives (mostly before, after and during the downfall of this scheme). I love stories like this that don't try to be overcomplicated with ridiculous twists and turns. This is extremely well written and intriguing and gripping throughout to read about how these people's lives turn out. It potentially does get a little weird when it verges onto the supernatural later on which is why I've marked it down a little. However aside from this, I found this to be such an enjoyable and thrilling read and it was made even more enjoyable by the fact that I had no expectations of this whatsoever.
  
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Hazel (2934 KP) rated Never Seen Again in Books

Mar 13, 2022  
Never Seen Again
Never Seen Again
Paul Finch | 2022 | Crime, Thriller
8
8.0 (1 Ratings)
Book Rating
I admit to being a fan of Mr Finch's work, having read and thoroughly enjoyed a few of his previous works and Never Seen Again is yet another one to add to the collection.

Here we have a twisty and dark thriller with a plot that is complex which although develops quite slowly, it ramps up and quickly becomes a rollercoaster of a ride with lots of tension and action.

The characters are excellent and well developed. The main character, David, is a journalist who starts off with few scruples and, as a consequence, I found he isn't a particularly likeable person ... at the start at least; he does grow on you as the story progresses. He and his sidekicks, Anushka and Norm, make a great team and I wonder if there is more to come from them? I certainly hope so.

Overall, a great read and I my thanks must go to Orion Publishing Group and NetGalley for my copy in return for an honest, unbiased and unedited review.
  
Red Queen
Red Queen
Victoria Aveyard | 2015 | Young Adult (YA)
8
8.0 (64 Ratings)
Book Rating
Plot (1 more)
Characters
Slow Start (0 more)
So Many Plot Twists!
THE PLOT TWISTS IN THIS BOOK GAVE ME WHIPLASH!


My poor, poor heart has been put through the ringer with this book! I was apprehensive about this book, I had heard mixed reviews and it honestly took me a while to get into it but I am so glad I stuck with it because it got so much better! There was one plot twist that took me by surprise and then there was another one! AND THEN THERE WAS A THIRD PLOT TWIST AS WELL! It also ended on a cliffhanger because, of course it did!

Fans of The Hunger Games will definitely enjoy this! It is similar, but I found that there were enough differences that it didn't feel like an exact copy.


I will say that you should be prepared to find it a bit slow at times, but honestly the second half of this book is so action packed and fast paced it makes it so worth it!


I need to read the sequel immediately! I hope it's just as good!


As an added bonus, the physical hardcover is beautiful, the end papers are pretty and the dust jacket is shimmery! Plus in all the editions there is a map which I always like in books!
  
A friends to lovers historical romance that is as cute as it is frustrating.

Friends to lovers is one of my favorite subgenres and it was clear from the beginning that Francine and Julian were meant for each other. Sometimes you can just tell that two souls are two halves of a whole.

While the romance is both heartwarming and almost painfully cute, it was the characters that enraptured me. Francine is an absolute doll and Julian is everything the hero should be. In truth, it is the collective of characters that make this story, not just the leads. Francine’s friends are a force to behold, her mother surprisingly insightful, and the ton as transparent as they ought to be.

The author has a talent for pulling emotions from the reader. With every mishap, misunderstanding, and discovery, I found myself holding my breathing and worrying right along with the heroine. AT some points I had to place the book down because I was either so frustrated I couldn’t deal or so shocked I needed to process.
 
I feel in the end, we got the end we wanted. But I was left wanting, mainly for Mary’s story. As one of Francine’s closest friends, I felt that Mary stole the show for me and I am very much looking forward to her own story.
  
TU
The Ultimates, Volume 1: Super-Human
4
6.0 (2 Ratings)
Book Rating
I only picked this up recently out of curiosity when Marvel started doing a hard-backed comic-book collection, to see what it would be like.

Now I've read it, I have to say: I wasn't really that impressed by this. Written pre Joss-Whedon's Avengers movie (and even pre the Marvel Cinematic Universe), I found pretty much all of the characters within to be unlikeable and uninteresting: while you can get away with the former, the latter, however, is a major flaw (IMO) in any story.

I don't know whether that's because I associate the characters more with their big-screen counter-parts than with how they are presented here (both of which, incidentally, are designed to show how the team comes together), with Hank Pym, in particular, coming across as a bit of a jerk while Betty Ross (Bruce Banner's girlfriend) also comes across as, well, just not that pleasant at all.

On the plus side, I did like the (somewhat meta) panels where they were all discussing who would play themselves in the Hollywood adaptation ...

I also noticed that, unlike their movie counterparts, they are able to use the term 'mutants': a term which, I believe, Marvel are unable to use on the big (or small) screen as it is licensed to Fox instead .
  
He's Just Not That Into You (2009)
He's Just Not That Into You (2009)
2009 | Comedy, Drama, Romance
5
6.7 (11 Ratings)
Movie Rating
the more i see it, the worse it gets
This film is just bad. Some acting is horrible, the plot entirely sucks, and the characters are so one-sided. I like movies like this, in the sense that its characters that are woven with each other through their relationships with others - in the same way, Valentine's Day and New Year's Eve were done. But this one, it's just not it.

I found Gennifer Goodwin's character to be the most annoying, along with Jennifer Connelly's. They were both just obnoxious and frustrating to watch. The way that GiGi was obsessed with literally every guy she ever went out with was just cringy and gross. And then when she threw herself at Alex? I literally muted it so I didn't have to hear their conversation, that's how bad I didn't want to watch that scene.

I think Neil was the best character of all of them. His only "flaw" really was that he didn't want to get married, but even then, he was still committed and loved Beth so much.

I feel like this is the movie you watch when you're going through a breakup and you're lonely and trying not to call your ex. Which I don't think is a good scenario to watch any movie so there's that.
  
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Kazu Kibuishi recommended Seven Samurai (1954) in Movies (curated)

 
Seven Samurai (1954)
Seven Samurai (1954)
1954 | Action, Adventure, Drama
7.7 (19 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"When I was fifteen, I caught a portion of Throne of Blood on television and couldn’t get it out of my mind. It set me off on a quest through video store shelves to figure out what it was I had seen, and I began by watching both Kagemusha and Seven Samurai on my way to finally rediscovering Throne of Blood. This pretty much sparked my interest in the classics. I cheated on this list by choosing three films, but I think it’s difficult to ever recommend just one Kurosawa film. Here’s a little side story: I used to encourage my friends to watch older movies back in high school, but they mostly found them to be dreadfully boring. The night before we were leaving for a snowboarding trip, I suggested watching a little bit of Seven Samurai. Now mind you, these are dudes who pretty much only watched the latest action movies or comedies. By the time intermission(!) came up, everyone had decided they needed to see the rest of this nearly four-hour epic instead of snowboarding in the morning. I highly recommend Seven Samurai for the reluctant classic movie watcher. It might just change some lives, but it can certainly change people’s perceptions of older films and remind them that “classic cinema” simply refers to old movies that are so awesome they’ve stood the test of time."

Source
  
Throne of Blood (1957)
Throne of Blood (1957)
1957 | Drama
9.0 (1 Ratings)
Movie Favorite

"When I was fifteen, I caught a portion of Throne of Blood on television and couldn’t get it out of my mind. It set me off on a quest through video store shelves to figure out what it was I had seen, and I began by watching both Kagemusha and Seven Samurai on my way to finally rediscovering Throne of Blood. This pretty much sparked my interest in the classics. I cheated on this list by choosing three films, but I think it’s difficult to ever recommend just one Kurosawa film. Here’s a little side story: I used to encourage my friends to watch older movies back in high school, but they mostly found them to be dreadfully boring. The night before we were leaving for a snowboarding trip, I suggested watching a little bit of Seven Samurai. Now mind you, these are dudes who pretty much only watched the latest action movies or comedies. By the time intermission(!) came up, everyone had decided they needed to see the rest of this nearly four-hour epic instead of snowboarding in the morning. I highly recommend Seven Samurai for the reluctant classic movie watcher. It might just change some lives, but it can certainly change people’s perceptions of older films and remind them that “classic cinema” simply refers to old movies that are so awesome they’ve stood the test of time."

Source